Cars: Licensing

Norman Baker: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport how many cars have ceased to be licensed in each year since 1985.

Paul Clark: The following table gives annual estimates of the number of registration marks that were on a car which ceased to be licensed, of which underwent a "cherished transfer" to another vehicle. Data are not available prior to 1995.
	
		
			   Number of car registration marks that ceased to be licensed  Estimated number of "cherished transfers" of car registration marks to other vehicles 
			 1995 2,768,000 85,000 
			 1996 2,549,000 98,000 
			 1997 2,726,000 112,000 
			 1998 2,984,000 136,000 
			 1999 2,860,000 134,000 
			 2000 3,012,000 115,000 
			 2001 3,028,000 167,000 
			 2002 3,177,000 191,000 
			 2003 3,385,000 217,000 
			 2004 3,203,000 253,000 
			 2005 3,189,000 264,000 
			 2006 3,289,000 294,000 
			 2007 3,281,000 298,000 
			 2008 3,264,000 284,000 
			  Note:  Figures are rounded to the nearest thousand. 
		
	
	The first data column counts cars that were not licensed at the end of the years shown, but whose registration mark was licensed (possibly on another vehicle) 12 months earlier. The vehicles that have become unlicensed may have been scrapped, exported or otherwise taken off the road. However, it is possible for unlicensed vehicles to become relicensed again in later years.
	The second data column counts the number of "cherished transfers" of registration marks from cars to other vehicles in the years shown. However, cherished transfer registration marks which are held on retention (rather than being transferred directly to other vehicles) are counted in the first column. The available data do not record what happened to vehicles whose registration mark was the subject of a cherished transfer. Some such vehicles would have been taken off the road, but others would have received a new registration mark and been relicensed. The figures are presented as rounded estimates, rather than exact counts, in view of this uncertainty.